“God the Midget” is one of the first stories I ever wrote. When I started doing public readings, I used to read it, but it always made people upset. At first I tried to explain that the story wasn’t meant to offend midgets, nor was it written to diminish gods: it was just another metaliterary story by a short writer who was afraid to be alone. But no one really listened, so I stopped reading it for about thirty years. And somehow now, when the world is making me feel even smaller and lonelier than usual, I had the urge to read it again.
In the beginning, the party was bombing and God the Midget started doing tricks so the guests wouldn’t go home and leave Him all alone. He began by juggling three tiny balls in the air, performing a series of amazing feats. And some of the guests who were on their way out took off their coats and sat down to watch God the Midget perform when He was at His best. Now He was juggling not three balls, but four. He tossed them in perfect geometric arcs, caught them behind His back and between his legs. Then He added a fifth one and the audience held its breath. But He didn’t stop there. He added another ball, another hundred, another million, and then He was juggling three billion balls in the air with His eyes closed, and not one of them fell. And while He was juggling twenty million trillion balls, He balanced a full glass of beer on His forehead without spilling a drop. Even the smartass guests who kept saying things like ‘Big deal, I can do that too,’ or ‘I once saw an Armenian in Vegas who could run rings around Him’ had to admit that He was something special. In the end, everyone came out a winner – the guests because of the fantastic show, all of us because of the world that was created, and God the Midget because He didn’t have to be alone.
